An Inconvenient Truth.

I saw Al Gore's movie on global warming just now. There was a free screening in Wheeler.

I know i've said this before. Please see it. And please do what you can.

* * *

I want to do everything i can, but i don't. I do a little bit. But by what standard should i judge my actions? I'm not satisfied with just "better than the average North American."

Watching this movie reminded me just how unevenly power is distributed. I am already one of the most fortunate, privileged people in the world by a wide variety of measures — health, affluence, education, freedom. I look down and see that i have orders of magnitude more opportunity and power than millions of humans do — even millions of Americans. So it is my responsibility to also be orders of magnitude more influential than the average American. And yet i also look up and see that the merest passing whim of a politician or energy industry executive would obliterate in an instant anything i might achieve in my entire lifetime.

I cannot help but think of how much power was in the hands of those residents of certain counties in Florida in 2000, and how much different the whole world would be today if their votes had been cast or counted just a little bit differently.